I am going to say it!! Yes I am, Nathan Jones......................

paulsturgess said:

fenaddick said:

paulsturgess said:

We have a low budget but don't think we definitively have a bottom 3 budget, Preston have a similar or maybe even lower budget than us and actually budget is highly relevant but ultimately you have to judge a teams performance Vs the players available to them on the pitch not their budget

we have Campbell, Leaburn and Carey for example who probably worth £10m + between them but cost nothing budget or wages (not to mention LJ) but I still have an expectation on a manager with those resources available to achieve from them, conversely some of the top teams have very highly paid / costly dead wood lingering about but doesn't necessarily make it easy if they're dealt that hand

personally I think the players and team we have are, or could be performing better than we have been, that's my opinion and therefore I'd like to see Jones get more from them, whilst also being conscious that i'm sure there are many managers out there who'd get them doing worse 

I don't particularly like it as a framework as there's a lot of guesswork involved but here is Transfermarkt's opinion of the lowest 10 squads by squad value. It suggests our squad is pretty weak compared to those we are scrapping it out with

These are generally nonsense 

Femi Azeez rated at £2m, but they rejected bids of £12m

no chance Wednesdays squad is worth anything like that sum

Not worth referring to.

Elthamaddick said:

I'd love to know who people genuinely think we could get in to replace Jones

Whatever happens this season (and I think we'll be ok) he's earned the right at another crack next season

I honestly dont think there are many that want him gone mate that would be a mental thing to do ! however I think there are quite a few (myself included) questioning the medium term chance of building a squad capable of playing a different kind of football as the current style is both horrible to watch and also has little chance of sustained survival. Hopefully it is a case of NJ having to get the best out of what he has got available in which case thats great but personally if next season we are still going out every game hoping to stop the other team scoring and nick the odd goal by any means possible that wont be enough

I feel like when someone criticises NJ for whatever, someone else automatically reads that as a NJ out post, and then people that praise him are accused of being overly complementary, I think NJ absolutely deserves to finish this season and then continue into the next and prove any doubters wrong and show he can evolve our playing style and still get results. I admit I find this quite regular comment of what they do on the training ground not translating to the game day performance, I’d be interested in his views as to why this is because at times it sounds like great stuff. I do question quite a lot of what goes on but doesn’t mean I want him sacked.

Its up to the owners - whoever they are at the moment - to provide sufficient funds to get the squad to mid-table level. If they don't, we'll keep dicing with relegation. 

That said, after 2015-2016 and 2019-2020 I'd take being where we are at the moment everyday, however grim and workmanlike some of our performances have been.

Reading this thread is so embarrassing. It's like everyone has forgotten how dreadful the previous 5 years have been.

It would be the height of irresponsibility to change our playing style now, given that we're picking points up every game at the moment.

I don't want to be playing "pretty" football against Port Vale, Fleetwood or Peterborough again (even though we never were). I want us to be in the Championship. Get to the summer and make the changes then. Nathan Jones knows what he is doing.

AndyG said:

se9addick said:

AndyG said:

Elthamaddick said:

I'd love to know who people genuinely think we could get in to replace Jones

Whatever happens this season (and I think we'll be ok) he's earned the right at another crack next season

I honestly dont think there are many that want him gone mate that would be a mental thing to do ! however I think there are quite a few (myself included) questioning the medium term chance of building a squad capable of playing a different kind of football as the current style is both horrible to watch and also has little chance of sustained survival. Hopefully it is a case of NJ having to get the best out of what he has got available in which case thats great but personally if next season we are still going out every game hoping to stop the other team scoring and nick the odd goal by any means possible that wont be enough

Did you think we’d be promoted from League One and suddenly start playing expansive, beautiful football in the Championship? I mean, we could try but with the resources available to us we’d have been relegated before Sheffield Wednesday. 

I don’t really understand where this “I won’t be happy until we’re playing Total Football” has come from, feels like inventing a stick to beat Jones with. Ultimately for the future of this football club we need to consolidate in this division and, frankly, that’s more important than entertainment value. That means this year, and next, we’ll be one of the teams with the lowest budget and will lose more games than we win. We need to play functional football with the resources we have. If Jones had greater resources available maybe we’d see something more attractive but that’s a moot point. Maybe after a couple of seasons in the Championship we can start to look upwards, but don’t hold your breath on that.

Mate Im not asking for expansive football ! but I dont think its asking too much to expect a football team to have enough ambition to play a few forward passes on the deck to a team mate who then maybe also passes it forwards to another team mate rather than sideways, backwards and smash lump it up top hoping something may happen

I honestly think playing a more attacking style of football a) probably wouldn’t work because we don’t have the players for it, and signing that type of player at this level would be far beyond our means, b) playing that way with the players we actually do have would be a disaster and massively increase our chances of relegation. 

AndyG said:

Elthamaddick said:

I'd love to know who people genuinely think we could get in to replace Jones

Whatever happens this season (and I think we'll be ok) he's earned the right at another crack next season

I honestly dont think there are many that want him gone mate that would be a mental thing to do ! however I think there are quite a few (myself included) questioning the medium term chance of building a squad capable of playing a different kind of football as the current style is both horrible to watch and also has little chance of sustained survival. Hopefully it is a case of NJ having to get the best out of what he has got available in which case thats great but personally if next season we are still going out every game hoping to stop the other team scoring and nick the odd goal by any means possible that wont be enough

There aren’t many at this current moment, but there were plenty a month ago, there’ll be some if we lose the next 3 games or don’t win for the first 3 games of next season. 

NabySarr said:

AndyG said:

Elthamaddick said:

I'd love to know who people genuinely think we could get in to replace Jones

Whatever happens this season (and I think we'll be ok) he's earned the right at another crack next season

I honestly dont think there are many that want him gone mate that would be a mental thing to do ! however I think there are quite a few (myself included) questioning the medium term chance of building a squad capable of playing a different kind of football as the current style is both horrible to watch and also has little chance of sustained survival. Hopefully it is a case of NJ having to get the best out of what he has got available in which case thats great but personally if next season we are still going out every game hoping to stop the other team scoring and nick the odd goal by any means possible that wont be enough

There aren’t many at this current moment, but there were plenty a month ago, there’ll be some if we lose the next 3 games or don’t win for the first 3 games of next season. 

This is the problem, there is so much short term thinking, overreaction to every poor result, lose a few games and suddenly the guy that’s taken us from 20th in league 1 to championship safety isn’t good enough. It’s not a Charlton thing, it’s a football thing but it’s still embarrassing to read and I wish we were better as a fan base

I don’t know. As mad as football is, I think many would be quite surprised at how quickly a moderate sized minority of our fans are to turn on Jones whenever we have a bad run. Christ, we’re actually on a decent run at the moment and safety is within our grasp yet there’s a fair few on this thread that are unhappy. 

Athletico Charlton said:

fenaddick said:

Athletico Charlton said:

We have won 2 of the last 20 league games we have played against 11 men (so not including Leicester and Sheffield Utd), picking up 12 points. We beat Stoke and Oxford 1-0.
That run includes games v Blackburn, West Brom, Pompey x2 and Norwich amongst others.  
I am really struggling to see where the 9-12 points we need from the last 12 games are going to come from.
We really are pinning all hopes on beating Wednesday and Oxford and then playing another team of 9 or 10 players aren't we?

I really dislike this framing. Those players didn't get sent off in a vacuum, our play contributed to them making stupid decisions because in that moment we had the beating of them. You can't just discount something that happened in a game because it doesn't suit a narrative. Would we have beaten Sheff Utd without the reds? Probably not but they wouldn't have got the reds if we hadn't royally wound them up before hand

And then in your next post you use Trasfermrkt values to make a point. Hmmm.

Acknowledging that it's flawed but is the only framework we have to go off, not sure that's the gotcha you think it is

One other thing that seems to be going unmentioned here, and is also to Jones' credit, is that i feel we came into this season very unprepared for the Championship.

When Jones took over we were in a relegation battle, and despite what may have been said publicly about last seasons aim, i'm convinced that the realistic aim was simply to challenge for a play off spot. The fact that we then made the play offs and got promoted was probably a year ahead of any internal plan the club had. I don't for a second think the owners told Jones in February 2024 with us sat just 3 points above dropping into league two that the plan was 'stay up this year, get promoted next'.

This is not a solid squad that was knocking on the promotion door for a couple of years, this is a club that had been absolutely shit, finishing 13th, 10th and 16th and had overhauls to the squad time and time again.

Add to that the play off final meant we also had practically a month less time to prepare and attract signings, and i think it's genuinely a credit to Jones that he has us where we are.

I have no doubts that if we stay up then we will see signings that progress the squad and our style of play.

superclive98 said:

Serious question for all those that hate the way we play: -

Would you be happy to switch the entire Millwall team/squad and manager, if you like, for ours?

Yes.

paulsturgess said:

We have a low budget but don't think we definitively have a bottom 3 budget, Preston have a similar or maybe even lower budget than us and actually budget is highly relevant but ultimately you have to judge a teams performance Vs the players available to them on the pitch not their budget

we have Campbell, Leaburn and Carey for example who probably worth £10m + between them but cost nothing budget or wages (not to mention LJ) but I still have an expectation on a manager with those resources available to achieve from them, conversely some of the top teams have very highly paid / costly dead wood lingering about but doesn't necessarily make it easy if they're dealt that hand

personally I think the players and team we have are, or could be performing better than we have been, that's my opinion and therefore I'd like to see Jones get more from them, whilst also being conscious that i'm sure there are many managers out there who'd get them doing worse 

I’m sorry to burst your bubble but you are definitely wrong on this. Owners have an anonymous mechanism to determine where they sit in player budget rankings and Rodwell confirmed it was bottom three at a recent fans forum. Unless he’s flat out lying, which is daft as financial results for this season will eventually be published. Funny you should mention Preston, one of the reasons Small went there instead of staying was they could offer more wages. So please explain exactly how Jones should be able to get more out of these players and compete against other teams when their quality and value are bottom three?